BBC4 Tues, 17th 9 p.m. Development of Evensong

[DracoM]

Found it very hard to get past L.Worsley's self-publicising, heel tapping flirtatiousness and ubiquity.
That had the potential for being a truly excellent programme, and it needed a quiet, less-is-more presenter who knew what he / she was talking about.
Singing fine.

[Miles Coverdale]

Of the pile of books Diarmaid MacCulloch had on the table, the bottom one of the four didn't have a title on the spine, but I'm guessing that it was a missal. Then came an antiphonal and gradual and the little book on top was one volume of a breviary. I strongly suspect that none of these was a sixteenth-century original, but all were nineteenth-century facsimiles or editions.

I very much doubt that. It looked like that segment was filmed in the upper library at Christ Church, which has a superb collection of such books. They looked, as far as I could tell, like originals, not later reproductions. Rebound perhaps, but otherwise original. The Sarum Antiphonal looked like the one I remember consulting as an undergraduate there, and dates from 1519. The Gradual on top of it is very probably the one that was printed by Hopyl in Paris in 1527. It's in two colours throughout and a stunning piece of presswork. I've tried to upload an image from it but I keep being told it's an invalid file.

Near the beginning Lucy Worsley said that what she was listening to (Taverner's Dum transisset) was exactly what one would have heard when Evensong was in its infancy; on the contrary, I think that Latin polyphony was exactly what would not have been heard. A few minutes later she says that 'this music' (the Taverner again) was 'written for Evensong services in the 1590s', which is obviously wrong. Maybe it was intended to go over the excerpt from Byrd's Great Service, in which case it would have been true.

[jean]

The Gradual on top of it is very probably the one that was printed by Hopyl in Paris in 1527. It's in two colours throughout and a stunning piece of presswork. I've tried to upload an image from it but I keep being told it's an invalid file.

None of which I could appreciate! Why weren't we told?

Near the beginning Lucy Worsley said that what she was listening to (Taverner's Dum transisset) was exactly what one would have heard when Evensong was in its infancy; on the contrary, I think that Latin polyphony was exactly what would not have been heard. A few minutes later she says that 'this music' (the Taverner again) was 'written for Evensong services in the 1590s', which is obviously wrong.

But was anything quite so wrong as the Josquin?

[jean]

...I was slightly surprised that no one pointed out the pretty obvious fact that Merbecke's book was really just a new plainsong repertoire for the BCP - and if Lucy was suggesting that this was intended to be congregational music I don't buy it.

The interesting thing about this Merbecke (as opposed to his presumably much earlier polyphony) is that it became standard congregational fare - though I think it has pretty much disappeared now. So it ended up as something never envisaged whan it was written.

Everything in the programme had a cathedral/Chapel Royal context in fact, and we weren't told what might have been happening in ordinary parish churches, so were left to assume it would have been much the same. But do we even know? What about the West Gallery tradtion - where did it come from? We know where it went - swept away by Cambridge Camden Society in the nineteenth century and the (re)introduction of parish church choirs as pale reflections of cathedral and college worship (or am I making this up?)

[jean]

Found it very hard to get past L.Worsley's self-publicising, heel tapping flirtatiousness and ubiquity.

Just be grateful that she didn't find it necessary to don a caassock and surplice. Or an alb.

[Pulcinella]

Just be grateful that she didn't find it necessary to don a caassock and surplice. Or an alb.

Is that how she'd pronounce it, jean?
Or only if she was going to Maass?

[subcontrabass]

Near the beginning Lucy Worsley said that what she was listening to (Taverner's Dum transisset) was exactly what one would have heard when Evensong was in its infancy; on the contrary, I think that Latin polyphony was exactly what would not have been heard.

In the Chapels Royal, Westminster Abbey, Eton College, Winchester College, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge services were in Latin. College services in Oxford only changed from Latin to English in the 1860s (or thereabouts).

I have seen it reported somewhere that ELizabeth I never (or very rarely) heard services in English.

[subcontrabass]

The interesting thing about this Merbecke (as opposed to his presumably much earlier polyphony) is that it became standard congregational fare - though I think it has pretty much disappeared now. So it ended up as something never envisaged whan it was written.

Everything in the programme had a cathedral/Chapel Royal context in fact, and we weren't told what might have been happening in ordinary parish churches, so were left to assume it would have been much the same. But do we even know? What about the West Gallery tradtion - where did it come from? We know where it went - swept away by Cambridge Camden Society in the nineteenth century and the (re)introduction of parish church choirs as pale reflections of cathedral and college worship (or am I making this up?)

The widespread use of Merbecke's music for the communion service only dates from the Catholic revival in the Church of England in the late nineteenth century.

West Gallery music came into being in the 18th century, and was, strictly speaking, mostly "extra liturgical" - a few anthems, but mainly the metrical psalms sung before and after the sermon which followed Matins and Evensong. Note that there is no provision for a sermon at these services in the Book of Common Prayer.

[jean]

West Gallery music came into being in the 18th century...

But where did it come from? What was happening in Parish churches before that? (Presumably nothing musical at all during the Commonwealth).

[vinteuil]

But where did it come from? What was happening in Parish churches before that? (Presumably nothing musical at all during the Commonwealth).

... indeed, what kind of music wd there have been in little rural churches prior to the Reformation?


.

[Vox Humana]

I very much doubt that. It looked like that segment was filmed in the upper library at Christ Church, which has a superb collection of such books. They looked, as far as I could tell, like originals, not later reproductions. Rebound perhaps, but otherwise original. The Sarum Antiphonal looked like the one I remember consulting as an undergraduate there, and dates from 1519. The Gradual on top of it is very probably the one that was printed by Hopyl in Paris in 1527. It's in two colours throughout and a stunning piece of presswork. I've tried to upload an image from it but I keep being told it's an invalid file.

Fair enough. I thought I recognised Christ Church, but then they said something which gave me the impression they were in Cambridge. It was the flatness of the pages that made me suspicious - and the fact that the Breviary looked about the size of the Procter and Wordsworth edition. I used to use the Sarum Antiphonal and Graduals in the British Library, which are printed on vellum and the pages are no longer flat - but I seem to recall reading that the Christ Church copy of the Antiphonal at least is printed on paper.

Near the beginning Lucy Worsley said that what she was listening to (Taverner's Dum transisset) was exactly what one would have heard when Evensong was in its infancy; on the contrary, I think that Latin polyphony was exactly what would not have been heard.

I would need to listen again. It would make sense if she was referring to the Latin services of Vespers and Compline which were usually sung back to back and were together known as Evensong (as she pointed out). As you know, Latin polyphony was certainly heard on occasion at such services (although certainly not Dum transisset). On the other hand you would hardly describe this as a service in its infancy.

[DracoM]

Yes, I was puzzled by the fact that at no point -IIRC - did the word 'vespers' get mentioned at all.
It wasn't as if this was a clean 'evening' slate H8 and E6 were venturing onto, was it?

[jean]

No, neither Vespers nor Compline got a mention.

And does anyone have any idea why the Josquin was included?

[Miles Coverdale]

In the Chapels Royal, Westminster Abbey, Eton College, Winchester College, and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge services were in Latin. College services in Oxford only changed from Latin to English in the 1860s (or thereabouts).

True enough, but those establishments were, in the wider context of the Church in England, surely the exception rather than the rule.

The music in the Wanley partbooks, for example, is representative of that being written when Evensong (and, of course, other BCP services) was in its infancy in the late 1540s and early 1550s: in English, predominantly though not entirely syllabic, and for the most part pretty uninspired stuff.

[Vox Humana]

But was anything quite so wrong as the Josquin?

Now that is a very good question. One is inclined to suppose not, particularly away from royal circles, but what about musical manuscripts that foreign visitors presented to Henry, like this one? Were such books just quietly placed in a library, or did the motets actually get heard and, if so, could it have been at a service? I'm not sure whether Praeter rerum serium found its way here, but, as this MS shows, other Josquin motets did.